Saturday, June 9, 2007

The Adventure Begins, Well, Almost

"The unexamined life is not worth living."Socrates

"I'll be mellow when I'm dead."

Weird Al Yankovic

Our family travels. A lot. The next adventure takes us "across the pond" to Paris. I've wanted to return to Paris ever since my parents took me there when I was fifteen. Of course, our trip will be quite different. We'll have no need to walk through Pigalle daily, trying to distract our daughter and ourselves from sightseeing or unknowingly sampling the wares. Instead, we'll be living in the 7th arrondisement, between Napoleon's Tomb and the Eiffel Tower. We already have an apartment, tres moderne, on Rue St. Dominique. We'll be there in just over two weeks.

Currently, we are in preparation mode:

researching everything from tours to cheese shops

checking our luggage--I just picked up new froggie luggage tags to help us identify our bags (pictured above)

reading everything available from the public library on Paris

buying various books about Paris

Listening to tapes and cds, reading, discussing, doing puzzles...anything to improve our grasp of the French language. Last night I was reading a slang book--I don't think most tourist conversations will contain many of the words now in my vocabulary! However, if I can get backstage at the ballet...

rehearsing walking tours. I bought a pack of 50 cards with a map on one side and a description on the other. I keep thinking they look like tarot cards!

watching movies in French. Today we went to see "Je t'aime Paris." I highly recommend seeing this one, even if you never intend to visit. I feel like I just took a whirlwind tour of the city and made new friends, even if I wouldn't want to meet some of them on a dark night.